Page 2 of Endgame

Without any hard proof or her confession, it’ll be impossible to figure out which one of them raped her.

Avenging her is impossible, even if I want to.

And I do.

Another groan vibrates through me, threatening to come out. The frustrated sound has accompanied me since I saw her bleeding on her bed.

It’s one that I’ve been suppressing in favor of soft smiles and holding her hand.

Just for a bit longer, she begs me whenever I urge her to go to our parents.Mom and Dad would be so embarrassed. I was so stupid, Everett. So stupid to fall for him. I need a few more days for myself, and then I’ll tell them. I won’t cry as much when they say it was my fault.

It wasn’t her fault. I know it in my bones. If she’d just talk to Mom and Dad, they’d tell her the same thing.

I repeated it to her until my voice turned raw. It never seems to sink in. The fact that she won’t come forward, that she’s too scared or ashamed, makes me want to scream or cry or both.

That night—that goddamn night—warps the truth in her head. Pain turns the truth into a vicious lie. It convinces her that we’d stop loving her.

“Dammit.” I land a punch on the bed instead of the wall, where I’d like to hit. I’m trying to be quiet. Considerate.

I unload a second punch on my bed. That one’s because she’s in pain.

The third is for every tear she’s shed over the last two months.

The last one is because she won’t let me sit beside her. I’m fucking useless.

All this rage, I’m being consumed by it.

Now I definitely can’t go in there. Barging into her sacred space while I’m shaking with barely contained rage isn’t an option I’m willing to entertain.

For the slightest chance that it might trigger her, I stay put. Breathing hard. Calming myself down.

Thinking. Thinking.Thinking.

Until she lets me in, what do I do? How can I help her?

Get revenge.

That’s it. That’s what I’ll do.

Once I figure out who hurt her…

I’ll make him pay for this.

“Who did it?” I ask the empty room. “Who?”

I’ve been racking my brain for weeks.

Whoever he was, this asshole was enough of a monster to hold her down in the shower and wash the evidence off her.

He watched her bleed even after the water stopped running. Warned her to stay quiet. That it’d be her word against his.

That was how I found her that night. She’d left her bedroom door unlocked, and I went in to ask for her charger.

I forgot about the charger the second I saw her bleeding all over her sheets, sobbing and shaking uncontrollably.

I told her, again and again, that I believed her.

It still wasn’t enough to convince her to come forward.